The Mexican
League has formally announced that it will be
playing two shorter seasons during the 2018 calendar year, beginning in
April
and ending in November.The announcement
came at the Liga's Assembly of Presidents meeting Thursday in Mexico
City. The
plan is for two separate 66-game regular season schedules with
playoffs,
bridged by a one-week rest in July during which the LMB's All-Star Game
(there'll be just one of those) is played.

While the move,
approximating the country's popular Liga MX
soccer circuit's Apertura and Clausura tournaments (which drew crowds
of about
27,000 per match for its 2016-17 seasons), represents a radical
departure from
baseball orthodoxy, Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor was in
attendance at Thursday's meeting and endorsed the move.O'Connor, you may recall, was compelled to
call an emergency meeting of LMB teams in February when internecine
squabbling
threatened to tear the 16 teams into two leagues or cancel the 2017
season
altogether.Instead of two leagues, now
we'll see two seasons for 2018.

Currently, the
Liga plays a single 112-game regular season
schedule from early April to mid-August, followed by a three-tiered,
eight-team
playoff lasting about a month into mid-September.The
new format will include two 66-game
regular seasons followed by playoffs, with the LMB's "Apertura"
lasting from April to July and their "Clausura" running from August
into November.The notion of a
two-season format was floated last month in a reference made by
incoming league
president Javier Salinas, whose background has been (not so ironically,
apparently) entirely as a Liga MX marketing executive.There was no word whether Salinas was going
to divide the LMB into eight-team Premier and First Divisions with
promotion/relegation playoffs for 2018, but it's only July.

Salinas, who
will replace retiring LMB president Plinio
Escalante at the conclusion of the current season and has been serving
as a de
facto co-president, addressed the addition of 20 games and a separate
playoff
to a league in which half its teams are teetering on economic collapse."The cost is relative," he
said."You can raise or lower it.If you qualify for the playoffs, it
decreases.If you manage your team
better, the same. Each team is independent and will have the economic
strategy
that suits them best."Salinas and
the LMB team presidents will be relying on added sponsorships next
season to
help offset the added expenses accrued from lengthening the overall
season two
months for teams like the Tabasco Olmecas, who had 178 warm bodies
rattling
around Estadio Centenario 27 de Febrero for a game against Yucatan
earlier this
month, and the Durango Generales, who've had some players refusing to
play
because they hadn't been paid in weeks.

Prior to
Thursday's press conference from the Assembly
meeting, the two-season proposal had drawn almost universal skepticism
from
Mexican baseball's print commentators, but the move may ultimately draw
the
strongest reaction from the Mexican Pacific League.While the LMB has eleven teams drawing fewer
than 5,000 fans per night (seven clubs are bringing in fewer than 3,000
per
opening), the MexPac has built itself into a juggernaut with a
leaguewide
attendance average of just under 10,000 per game, a figure that dwarfs
every
league in organized Minor League Baseball.The LMP season traditionally opens in mid-October, meaning the
LMB's
Clausura will overlap the MexPac schedule by about a month.

According to
Beatriz Pereyra of Proceso, the LMB will require
players to sign contracts for both
seasons, thus cutting the player pool for the MexPac.Thus far, LMP president Omar Canizales has
been silent on this topic, but it's expected by some that his league
will
respond by opening their rosters to more imported talent from the
United States
to fill the void while the Liga plays out its Clausura season.In effect, the LMB's lengthening of its
schedule is a declaration of war on the LMP, which has in the recent
past
explored expansion into Liga cities like Monterrey, Tijuana and even
Mexico
City.

Whatever
happens, the LMB will likely have the backing of
Major League Baseball and commissioner Rob Manfred, which recently gave
the
Liga their version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval despite
the
financial mess many Mexican League teams are in.According
to Pereyra, three teams (Durango,
Leon and Saltillo) each owe the Liga MX$15 million in assessments for
2017,
with Leon owner Arturo Blanco owing another 900 thousand pesos toward
the
purchase price of the former Reynosa Broncos, while several other LMB
franchises owe MX$2.5 million to the league office.

One of those
teams, the Veracruz Rojos del Aguila, are
looking to move, possibly to Nuevo Laredo. The Eagles are currently
eleventh in
the LMB attendance derby with a per-game average of 2,647. Team
president Jose
Antonio Mansur backtracked a bit by later stating he would keep the
team in the
port city if attendance improves over the rest of the current season,
during
which the 40-49 Rojos del Aguila have been a playoff contender in the
weak
South Division.

The club has
been a past recipient of government subsidies to
remain afloat, a common occurance with several LMB franchises.However, the exiled ex-State of Veracruz
governor responsible for recent largesse, Javier Duarte, was arrested
outside
the country in April after a six-month manhunt and is facing charges of
pilfering millions of dollars from public coffers, as are many of his
associates.Duarte was extradited from
Guatemala City earlier this week.In
all, eight former Mexican governors have been indicted for similar
crimes and
their successors have typically reined in past subsidies to sports
teams that
have relied on them to meet payroll, among other expenses.

In all, the
LMB's break from baseball tradition would be
fascinating to observe, let alone report on, under any circumstance.That the Liga is doing so amid internal
financial peril to so many of its teams accentuates how badly Salinas
and the
owners will need this to work in order to bring fans in through the
gates and
sponsorship pesos to team bank accounts.We'll be watching.

P.S.The LMB also
announced the return of its Mexican Winter League for a third season,
opening
on October 20.The six-team LIM,
considered Class A in the country's baseball system, is a
prospect-oriented
circuit that allows only Mexican-born players.It's presumed the loop will play a single-season schedule.